Op/Ed

FL Budget Agreement: When Quid Pro Quo Turns
Into Quid Pro No, All Bets Are Off

Posted
June 8, 2017 07:35 am | Op-Ed

By Joe Henderson

As the special session of the Legislature was set to
begin Wednesday, everyone heard of how the compromise
deal that appeared to be the framework for a budget
agreement was close to collapse.

Humm.

Speaker Richard Corcoran (left), Senate President Joe
Negron (right)

It brought Senate President Joe Negron into sharp
focus, since he seems to be the one leading the charge
to turn the quid pro quo reached in secret last week
with Speaker Richard Corcoran and Gov. Rick Scott into a
quid pro no.

It makes for dandy political theater and all, but
shouldn’t all of this have been worked out BEFORE the
three amigos appeared on stage together last Friday to
tout the budget agreement? The way it was presented made
it sound like everyone had gotten something they wanted
and all the other lawmakers had to do was see the
brilliance of the compromise and pull out their rubber
stamp.

Guess not.

Let’s try to make at least a little sense out of
this, shall we?

Simply put, the way education will be funded in
Florida appears to be at the center of this knockdown,
drag-out.

Negron’s main interest appears to be increasing money
for the state university system. He has long championed
an effort to bring Florida’s institutions of higher
learning into the same status as, say, those in Michigan
and Virginia.

That’s not surprising. Negron is an educated man,
holding a master’s degree from Harvard and a law degree
from Emory University. He apparently wants to restore
money to the university system that would otherwise be
redirected to the K-12 public system.

He also wants to use some of the state’s reserve fund
to restore $260 million in cuts to hospitals

Why he didn’t make that point during the now-infamous
secret meeting last week with Scott and Corcoran isn’t
clear. Then again, maybe he did and the other two
weren’t paying attention.

I’ll bet they’re paying attention now, though.

In a pre-session memo to senators, Negron said, “I
have made no agreement that would dictate an outcome for
this special session. Nor have I made any agreement to
limit the subject matter.”

State Senator Jack Latvala tossed in a grenade of his
own with this tweet: “Just 3 months ago @richardcorcoran wanted
to abolish EFI and Visit FL. Now he wants to give them
$150 million plus. What changed?”

For the acronym-challenged, EFI stands for Scott’s
beloved Enterprise Florida jobs incentive program. Visit
Florida is the tourism promotion arm. Corcoran used his
opposition to both programs (CORPORATE WELFARE, he
screamed) as a kind of Trojan horse so he could push
forward with what appears to be his real agenda — an
expansion of charter schools.

With the possibility of a Scott veto looming over
Corcoran’s signature piece of legislation, they thought
they reached the compromise that was unveiled last
Friday. Scott seemed satisfied with the funding for his
programs, and Corcoran threw in a few requirements in
the name of accountability about how the money will be
spent.

I guess they didn’t count on Negron’s last-minute
gambit.

Corcoran responded to Negron’s memo with a lengthy
statement that accused him of wanting “a massive
property tax increase, wants to weaken accountability
provisions for VISIT FL and EFI, and wants to raid
reserves to give to hospital CFOs. Needless to say, the
House is not raising taxes, not softening accountability
rules, and not borrowing against reserves to pay for
corporate giveaways.”

Whew!

There is no way to know how this is going to end or
how long it will take, so I won’t hazard a guess. The
last time I tried to do that, I got whiplash. I don’t
want to make it any worse.

---------------

Joe Henderson had a 45-year career in
newspapers, including the last nearly 42 years at The
Tampa Tribune. Mr. Henderson has numerous local, state and
national writing awards. He has been married to his
wife, Elaine, for nearly 35 years, and has two grown
sons.
Column courtesy of Florida Politics.

This piece was reprinted by the Columbia County Observer
with permission or license.